January 27, 2006

FactFinder Download Center Lets You Download Data for All ZIPs

Callers constantly ask us about downloading data from the Census 2000 Summary Files for all ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) in the country. Up to now you were forced to go state by state in the American FactFinder (AFF), work with the challenging FTP files, or buy the data on DVD. Now salvation is at hand.

American FactFinder now has a new Download Center especially designed for users needing to download a whole set of tables for a whole category of geographic areas - such as counties, places, metro areas, or ZCTAs. The more areas the better, the more tables the better. You will be able download tables from Summary 1 or 3 for all these areas in one operation. Come to the Census Bureau home page and click on the American FactFinder. On the FactFinder page, click on the "Download Center," which then asks you to choose the data file. If you want ZCTA data, pick Summary File 1 or 3 and then "All 5-digit ZIP Code Tabulation Areas." Next decide whether you want all tables in the file or a subset of tables. AFF instructs you to "Start Download" after which you are prompted to open or save the data as a zipped file. After saving the file, open it in Excel and then you may have to divide the data into columns by accessing "Text to Columns" under "Data."

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